


A Pale Sound

by Technicolour (Lirriel)



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Anal Sex, Cowgirl Position, M/M, Porn With Plot, Smut, same age au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:08:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22200814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirriel/pseuds/Technicolour
Summary: In the far future, FTL travel has been achieved through the use of pair-bonds: singers and composers who guide their vessels through subspace to cross vast distances. Sanha is the only singer aboard his craft not yet bonded to a composer, but Jinwoo is still nursing old wounds.
Relationships: Kim Myungjun | MJ/Moon Bin, Lee Dongmin | Cha Eunwoo/Park Minhyuk | Rocky, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Park Jinwoo | Jin Jin/Yoon Sanha
Comments: 8
Kudos: 41





	A Pale Sound

**Author's Note:**

> in addition to being a space au, this is also a same age au. everyone is 26-27 at the time this story takes place. 
> 
> **content warning** : smut, some language.

“Easy trail,” the singer says. He’s reading subspace like it’s sheet music: musical notation dictated in the spread of stars. Of them all, Eunwoo is the best at following previously-established roads. Once they reach blankspace, he’ll swap out for Myungjun, and Bin will take over as navigator.

Of their crew, Jinwoo and Sanha are the last ones to jump. It’s nothing on Sanha’s end: he’s waited patiently since he qualified for the program, when his parents were told there was a not-insubstantial chance that he possessed a rare variant of the AVPRA1A gene. Subspace is sub-atomical, special, something only musicians can feel.

But there was an expectation, on Jinwoo’s part, that he would be paired with Myungjun. It makes sense. They achieved 95.3% compatibility in simulation runs. The entire team is within the 80th percentile with each other. But tests can only reach so far, and the first time he jumped, Myungjun took Bin with him.

Sanha has never pushed for Jinwoo to get over his disappointment faster. If you want a good pair-bond, you don’t try to force it.

Sanha peers over Minhyuk’s shoulder, curious. They’ve all been given a basic rundown of a composer’s setup, but Myungjun, Eunwoo, and he never took the final courses after they tested into the singer program.

With what he remembers from his classes, they’re rapidly approaching blankspace: that part of the map that hasn’t yet been charted. It’s all empty there, no more notes to follow. Minhyuk’s composition is solid enough, but Eunwoo can sometimes flounder without solid direction. When they’re in completely new territory like now, it’s best to let Bin and Myungjun take over.

He taps Minhyuk’s shoulder and says his name. He doesn’t get a response. Not surprising, when Minhyuk’s sunk deep in subspace, guiding Eunwoo through the twists and turns of a tachyonic field. He steps away and goes to find the next pair-bond instead. Minhyuk will know Eunwoo and he are fast running out of sheet music, no more beacons to follow, no more notation to trace. He'll pull them out when it's time.

Beyond the bridge, Sanha heads down a short hallway to the lift. On this level, there’s only it, the medbay, and the constant hum of generators that power their spacecraft. Myungjun has retrofitted the ship to passively collect radiation and process it for additional power, but Sanha still can’t quite tune out the steady rumble the processor makes. He steps on the lift and blinks when the artificial intelligence snaps a picture of his eye for identification. He’ll never get used to _that_ either.

He finds the rest of his team on the upper deck. Bin, Jinwoo, and Myungjun all cluster around a datapad, going over the information collected by the ship since they moved out of Federation space.

“Quadrant A-76 looks more promising,” Myungjun says.

Bin stands beside him, so close that he could easily rest his head on top of Myungjun’s shoulder. He looks as if he can’t quite decide whether he wants to lean on his pair-bond or eat: his eyes keep drifting toward the canteen.

Jinwoo is diplomatic: “We might bump up against SVT-15 if we go that way. I know they wouldn’t mind, but the Corp would.”

“SH-01, then.” Bin makes the decision for them, having taken hold of Myungjun’s bicep. He tugs at it, voice rising in a whine as he says, “Now let’s _eat_ , MJ.”

“Poor baby,” Myungjun coos back in a perfect falsetto, fluttering his eyelashes.

Sanha is close enough to see Jinwoo roll his eyes.

“Don’t take too long,” he says. The pair-bond pause in their flirting to turn matching expressions on him.

‘ _And who are you?’_ he can almost hear them ask, but he’s known them long enough that he just barrels on, keenly aware of the relieved smile Jinwoo flashes him. “We’re running out of known space. Eunwoo and Minhyuk will expect you to take over soon.”

Myungjun scoffs. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

He lunges for Sanha and catches him by the forearm. “Come join us,” he says brightly, tipping his head to the side – if Sanha hadn’t know him since academy days, he might find the gesture cute. Instead, he barely suppresses a shudder, even as Myungjun’s fingers dig into the meat of his arm.

“Ugh,” he says, rolling his eyes, sucking in a breath between his teeth. He’d be more interested if the Kitchen-Aide hadn’t informed him earlier they’d be eating monkfish stew. He’s not so terribly allergic that he can’t eat the synthetically-constructed flesh, but it never sits right in his stomach.

But he relents with a dragged-out, “I guess,” because he knows Jinwoo will join them. Someday, they’ll be a pair-bond; he has to be supportive, even if it means watching the Myungbin Show.

_Things were easier when just talking about kissing made us embarrassed,_ he reflects.

SH-01 takes days to turn up anything interesting. Most of the planets they scan are uninhabitable: either gas giants ravaged by electrical storms or solid hunks of rock that show no signs of water and thus nothing relating to life.

It’s the sad truth of space exploration: most of it is spent hurtling through the empty cosmos. Even with the ability to travel through subspace and thus cross great distances faster than light, Sanha spends more time than he likes to admit just staring at dead readings. No life, no water, sometimes not even a crust for them to land safely on.

Which is why the night PDI-9996 (Planet Designated Inhabitable, followed by a string of numbers that place it in the known universe) shows up on their scanners, the crew throws a party.

It isn’t much of a party, because it’s only the six of them and the ship’s artificial intelligence stuffed into a miniature cleaner bot that motors around. But there’s copious amounts of alcohol, and the Kitchen-Aide is kind enough to provide them with rehydrated ox tongue. Sanha’s just happy it isn’t synthetic.

There’s also a lot of make-outs, specifically between Bin and Myungjun – though it certainly isn’t for lack of trying on Minhyuk’s part. Sanha shares an exasperated smile with Eunwoo (who has the grace to look apologetic) when Minhyuk gets up to fetch another bottle of booze.

Jinwoo returns from his own venture to the canteen just as it’s starting to get uncomfortable. He carries a cheese plate with one hand. The other one runs through his hair in obvious annoyance.

“I swear,” he almost bursts out (and Sanha reflexively reaches out to pat his shoulder), before checking his volume and saying more quietly, voice tight, “We should just eject them. Or dump them on this planet. Let some other ship pick them up in a few months.”

“What happened?” Eunwoo asks. He’s nibbling delicately at a sandwich, little finger stuck out. Sanha might think it was a pretentious act if everything Eunwoo did wasn’t so earnestly sincere.

“More like _who_ ,” Jinwoo answers.

Sanha winces sympathetically and sips at the soju he’s been nursing.

“Should I ask?” he says, trying to ease Jinwoo’s mood.

Jinwoo doesn’t get _mad_ when he’s been drinking, but he definitely gets emotional. He also gets sleepy, which is part of the reason Sanha is being careful with his own intake. He’d never admit aloud that he doesn’t trust the others to be responsible when they’re drunk, but he’ll certainly think it. If anyone’s going to make sure Jinwoo gets to bed, it’ll be him.

“They’re loud,” Jinwoo mumbles at last, sounding miserable. He dips forward until his forehead touches the table, and Sanha rubs more vigorously at his shoulder.

“Not in the liquor room?” Eunwoo asks, sounding faintly horrified. Sanha wants to hiss at him to _shut up_ , but the damage was done as soon as Jinwoo heard them.

“Not in the canteen at all,” Jinwoo clarifies. His voice is muffled. “Hallway. They’re tucked in a corner somewhere.”

“I’ll go get Minhyuk,” Eunwoo says. He’s extracting himself from their table before Sanha has a chance to respond.

_‘I’ll take Jinwoo to bed,’_ he mouths back. Eunwoo beams at him, raises his thumb up in encouragement, and then disappears through the same door Jinwoo entered from.

Even though they’re all certified to jump, Myungjun took enough engineering classes that he’s in charge of their ship’s on-the-road repairs. This means he knows every nook and cranny, and he exploits this information whenever he wants. He uses it for pranks, for games, and – when he’s drunk enough – for sex.

Add a drunk Bin to the mix, and Sanha is almost impressed they’re not fucking in the middle of the corridor. _Almost._

“Are you sleepy, Jinwoo?” he asks. His hand has moved from Jinwoo’s shoulder down to the center of his back. Sanha draws lazy circles with his fingers. If his voice wasn’t rough from alcohol, he might hum a bit – anything to help Jinwoo calm down.

The smaller man takes a moment to answer, and Sanha leans closer, trying to discern whether he’s fallen asleep. But he finally replies with a small, “Mmhm,” and Sanha takes that as his cue.

He stands up from his chair and removes his hand from Jinwoo’s back to loosen up his shoulders. He’s come a long way from the scrawny beanpole he was during academy days, but Jinwoo’s never stopped being solid; like this, he might as well be an oversized sack of potatoes.

Sanha still manages, somehow, to scoop him up. It’s a near-thing, and he silently thanks Bin for all the weight training he’s been subjected to. Jinwoo curls one arm around his neck and leans his head against Sanha’s chest. The one saving grace is that he’s compliant like this, all the fight gone out of him. Sanha hefts Jinwoo a little higher and starts for his bedroom.

The ship holds three living spaces: two single-bed rooms and one, much larger room that houses four bunk beds. They swap out the single beds once a month to keep things fair, deciding who gets which by drawing lots. This month, Sanha was lucky enough to win one of the single beds, but Jinwoo is stuck in the bunk room. He shares it with Bin and Myungjun; Minhyuk spends his nights in Eunwoo’s single.

Sanha silently thanks the ship designers for padding the walls with noise-canceling material. (Minhyuk is _loud_. He can even out-scream Myungjun when he’s excited enough.)

He ends up tucking Jinwoo into one of the bottom bunks, the one nearest the door. He likes to think he does it because he just intuitively recognizes which bed Jinwoo would choose, but the more likely truth is that his arms were beginning to give. Jinwoo ends up on top of the blankets, so Sanha snatches one off the top bed and covers him with that. He takes the pillow too, because Jinwoo needs proper cushioning for his head.

Sanha doesn’t linger long afterward. Seeing Jinwoo’s sleeping face always makes him feel weird. If he spends longer than normal in the shower, well, it’s been a long day.

They explore the new planet the next day. While they’re certified specifically for space exploration and subspace trail-blazing, they make money on the side by dropping planetside and gathering samples. They only ever do it on worlds bereft of large fauna and superflora. Sanha ran the scans while they sat just outside the planet’s ring system, and it qualifies. 

They drop down as a four-man group: Eunwoo, Minhyuk, Myungjun, and Sanha. Jinwoo always stays ship-side as the only one qualified to utilize the medbay. Eunwoo and Sanha have first-aid knowledge, but anything requiring medical tools is beyond them.

Bin stays behind because he’s nursing a gigantic hangover and looks the worst Sanha has ever seen him. Jinwoo explicitly denied his request to descend, and when he put up a fuss, Myungjun leaned over and flicked him square between the eyes. He softened the blow with a kiss right after, but by then Bin was willing to comply.

They step out of the transporter onto soil that sits loose and loamy around their boots. They’re all equipped with smart suits, the ship’s A.I. doing minute adjustments as it reads responses from the environment and the ground. The sky above is an overly-oxygenated blue, but the readings suggest there’s more CO2 than anything else.

They’ve touched down in a clearing, exploration time set for two hours. They’ll reconvene afterwards and return to their starcraft. They don’t have to do a deep-search of this planet, just bring back enough samples that others will see the value in exploring the rest. 

They spread out, but not so greatly that they lose sight of each other. Even though the ship’s assured them the planet’s safe, there’s no sense in rushing off. They’ve landed in a jungle, the start of what will become a hotbed for mega-fauna in a hundred-thousand years. But for now, everything is in its infancy, and Sanha hears the faint trill of developing avians as he bends to collect a few samples of leaf litter.

He spots Minhyuk as he rises back up to his full height and takes a moment to wave. Minhyuk raises two fingers in his suit and taps them against the helmet he wears before continuing to wade through brush that rises to his hip.

_All good_ , Sanha thinks.

And then there’s a great crashing from where he last saw Eunwoo and Myungjun.

He turns, hand dropping to the pistol that rests on his thigh. In his ear, the suit blares out a warning. He feels it seal off the filtered air he’s been receiving from outside, switching over to a small canister of oxygen mixture carried on his back. He starts toward the commotion, hand off his pistol.

He finds Eunwoo bent double, while Myungjun leans against a tree. Minhyuk’s checking over Eunwoo, words muffled through his suit. Sanha heads toward Myungjun, crouching down so he can look into the shorter man’s face.

Myungjun’s gone pale, but he still has enough sense to tap on a two-way comm. His voice blasts in Sanha’s ear, wet and breathy: “I think we got sprayed with something. Eunwoo took the worst of it.” He pauses, swallows, and Sanha can already hear something clogging up his throat. “Stupid ran over before his suit finished sealing. He’s probably compromised too.”

Sanha bites his lip.

He pulls up a direct link to the ship and says, “You get that, Jinwoo?”

There’s a second of silence, and then Jinwoo answers, “Yeah. I got three suits. I’m guessing you weren’t affected?”

Sanha starts to answer but the comm abruptly cuts on again, Bin’s voice hard in his ear as he demands, “How’s Myungjun?”

Sanha’s eyes drift to where Myungjun’s trying not to wheeze. His teeth dig deeper into his lower lip, and he sucks in a hard breath. “Been better.” Since he knows Jinwoo is still listening, he adds, “I wasn’t hit. MJ says it was a spray of some kind. Eunwoo took the brunt of it. Expect us back soon.”

“Gotcha,” Jinwoo says. “Stay safe, we’ll have medbay ready.”

When they return to the ship, the news isn’t good.

“It’s an airborne infection. Fungal-based. Probably transferred through that spray that hit you.” Jinwoo taps through his datapad, lips set in a tense line. “It’s outside my expertise.”

“Does the computer recognize it?” Eunwoo asks. He’s the worst affected of the three. His head hangs low, his eyes already covered in a sickly-pale film.

Jinwoo’s fingers tap harder at the datapad, practically jabbing against the glass casing. His voice drips disgust as he answers, “Only enough to tell me it’s not qualified to handle this. What’s the nearest station?”

“Staton M-5,” Bin says. His eyes are focused solely on Myungjun, his mouth turned downwards in a terse frown. “ETA: three weeks without jump.”

Eunwoo’s breath rattles in his chest. Minhyuk is better off, though his cheeks are flushed. He turns imploring eyes upon Jinwoo and says, “That’s too long.”

Jinwoo bites his lip and says, “We can stabilize them for three days maximum.”

Sanha knows what they’re all thinking. Of the ones unaffected, it’s Jinwoo, Bin, and himself. He’s the only healthy singer, the only singer capable of jumping through blankspace. He doesn’t look toward Jinwoo.

It’s the only answer. While exceptions exist, pair-bonding rarely accepts a third member. There have been successful cases specifically in times of crisis, but Sanha can feel Myungjun’s eyes burning into him, and Bin wears a look of disgust. Neither of them want to share.

Sanha catches his bottom lip between his teeth and bites until pain blooms. Then, he says, “Bin—."

“Don’t be selfish,” Bin hisses, all his venom directed toward Jinwoo. “We all saw each other’s scores. You got 94.7% with Sanha! You know you can jump with him, so why the fuck won’t you!?”

“I,” Jinwoo says. “I don’t,” and he closes his eyes, breathing out through his nose. When he opens them again, he simply says, “I’ll do it.” He sets his datapad down and moves to exit the room, saying, “Come on, Sanha. We need to go through calibration.”

This isn’t what he wants. Sanha chases after him. “Jinwoo, no, I’ll go with Bin, you don’t have to—!”

“If it’s you two, we’ll crash into the station,” Jinwoo retorts. He pauses at the entrance to the bridge, just long enough for the retina scanner to authorize his access. He passes through the sliding door, Sanha still determinedly dogging his steps, and adds, “He’s too hard for you, Sanha. It’d never hold.”

Sanha knows what he means. Bin and he scored an 81%, which typically isn’t a bad score. But it matters when it’s wetware linking together; even in simulation runs, he came away with headaches. Bin works with Myungjun because Myungjun’s voice is too powerful for most composers to mold.

But it’s more than just Bin pummeling his cortex. It’s the fact Bin would be wearing his skin, and he’s be crammed into Bin’s veins. He likes Bin, but he’s also a little scared of him. You always remember the first time a composer crushes your voice, even if it’s an accident. 

“But you’re—,” he starts to say. _Not ready_. The words die on his tongue, and he swallows them back down. Jinwoo catches him by the wrist, guiding him into the cockpit designed for singers. He sits there, numb, as Jinwoo helps him link in.

_This is happening_ , he thinks, right as Jinwoo’s brain connects with his.

“Pre-cal, check,” he hears Jinwoo say behind him. It echoes in his ears, so deep that he squirms on reflex. Sanha is distantly aware of a third body on the bridge—he thinks this is Bin, but his outer consciousness is already falling away.

He’s the ship, Jinwoo’s fingers ticklish on his bare flesh as they skim the controls.

A sigh eases out of him as Jinwoo touches lower, finds the stick that drops them into subspace and tugs it on.

He feels Jinwoo plot out the course toward Staton M-5.

Jinwoo’s clutching his cerebrum, fingers firm but pleasant. Just enough pressure to show he’s there, his thumb flicking Sanha’s mind into a shape more suited for the flight ahead. Sanha’s never been more malleable, goosebumps breaking out over his physical body even as his mental shivers with each new touch.

He’s the fuel, what drives the ship through space. Jinwoo maps out the star road, courteous enough to leave markers behind for the next starcraft to dip into subspace around the planet. With his composer so focused on the task at hand, Sanha drifts.

He slips inside Jinwoo, combs through his individual memories. He can’t go too deep, since the network doesn’t dip much lower than short-term memory. But he sees enough. His heart lightens when he realizes Jinwoo’s pain isn’t so great as it appears.

Myungjun’s still a sore spot, _what could have been_ an easy refrain in Jinwoo’s mind. But Sanha thinks he can teach Jinwoo a new tune. He tests his hypothesis by pressing _happy-calm-safe_ into the connection. He feels Jinwoo shudder, trembles with him, and is rewarded with a rolling wave of bliss.

He thinks, _Simulation never felt like this._ He thinks, _I’m happy I waited._

He knows why the others are always all over each other, why sexual relationships occur in a majority of pair-bonds. It’s their first jump, and he already wants to stay buried in Jinwoo forever.

He’s surprised and touched by how much Jinwoo loves him. That Jinwoo loves him isn’t a shock; he loves them all, synchronizes well with all of them. But he’s always wondered if Jinwoo resented him, just a little, for the inevitable that Sanha presented: a predetermined pair-bond.

But, no. He’s never hated Sanha. If anything, he pities Sanha. Both of the other singers were able to choose their composer; Sanha was left with what remained.

Sanha hammers against this assumption with every happy memory he can muster. Snapshots of their academy days, still frames of their life aboard the ship. And, though it embarrasses Sanha to show it, a few memories, stitched together: when Jinwoo would go out of his way to muss Sanha’s hair, praising him.

He did it when they were small, and he continued to do it even after Sanha far outgrew him. Sometimes he would stand on his tip-toes, sometimes he would clamor onto something. But his hand was always so gentle.

After he shows Jinwoo that, the only emotion that rolls off Jinwoo is a nameless warmth.

He feels when they land just outside Staton M-5, a few hours away by standard time. They can’t drop out of subspace exactly on the station (it’s something about physics that Sanha remembered only for as long as he was tested on it), but they’re near enough that they can make the rest of the trip normally. All three of the afflicted have been put into stabilization and aren’t in any immediate danger.

Which is good, because Sanha comes out of subspace aching in a way that has nothing to do with pain. He clambers out of the cockpit as soon as he’s detached from the biolinks, staggering as he remembers what having a body feels like. He immediately looks around.

Bin is stood by the main controls, smirking a bit. Sanha follows his gaze and finds he’s looking at Jinwoo. Sanha’s pair-bond (they’re a _pair-bond_ , Sanha thinks wonderingly) looks near-boneless, standing but shaky. Something hot dips beneath Sanha’s abdomen when they lock eyes.

Sanha licks his lips, mouth suddenly dry.

“I can steer us in,” Bin says. He’s wearing a wicked smile. “You two should get some _rest_.” His final word is loaded with so much innuendo, Sanha is surprised the air doesn’t catch on fire.

“We will,” Jinwoo says. Despite his appearance, his words are firm. But Sanha can tell just how wrecked he is. He was inside Jinwoo just a moment ago, after all.

Damn, if the idea of being _inside_ Jinwoo doesn’t make his cock ache. His entire body has been burning since he disconnected. He almost wants to commend the other pair-bonds for how much restraint they show. If he had less control over himself, he’d be fucking Jinwoo in the cockpit right then and there.

“Sanha?” Jinwoo says, closer now. The shorter man is staring up at him, lips slightly parted. “You okay?”

“Yes,” he says. “Yeah. We should rest, right?” His voice cracks on _rest_ , and he sucks on his bottom lip. He has the sneaking suspicion that Jinwoo is more interested in his mouth than the fact he just squeaked.

“You can sleep in my room, if you want,” he finds himself offering. He refuses to look at Bin, who is probably outright _leering_ , because here’s the only two members of their crew who aren’t constantly fucking like horny teenagers, trying to dance around the fact that as soon as they get behind closed doors they’re going to join the circle of sin. 

It’s almost a relief when Jinwoo grabs his hand (his _hand_ , not his wrist, not his forearm—their fingers are threaded together, which would be cuter if they weren’t both sweating) and drags him to the bedroom.

The first kiss is good—no knocking teeth, a swipe of his tongue—but it barely compares to how he was earlier, wrapped up in Jinwoo’s skin. He thinks, _I want to devour you_ , even as Jinwoo attacks his mouth again, catching Sanha by the hair and dragging him down into a kiss that sears. It hurts, the way Jinwoo’s fingers tug at the roots of his hair, and in any other circumstance he’d be complaining loudly.

But like this?

His nerves sing with the pain, and he’s not shy about catching Jinwoo’s lower lip between his teeth, biting hard enough that Jinwoo hisses into his mouth. He calms the ache with a gentle suck, tongue sliding along the bruised skin.

He only realizes he’s trembling when they separate to start tugging clothes off. His hands shake as he works at Jinwoo’s belt, and abruptly Sanha finds himself caught up in a hug, Jinwoo’s broad shoulders something he can stabilize against.

“We don’t have to,” Jinwoo whispers into his ear, and Sanha shudders again. Jinwoo sounds the way he feels: desperately straining against his skin, needing to connect but fumbling in the physical of it all.

“No,” he says, voice hoarse. “I want to, I just don’t know—.” He presses his face into Jinwoo’s neck, breathing in his scent: it’s mostly sweat, but there’s hints of the medbay, sharp antiseptic and fresh plastic. It’s not a pleasant smell, really, but Sanha finds comfort in it.

He’s been with a few men in his life, but practicing handjobs with Minhyuk doesn’t help him here. Neither does the most recent bartender he fucked, stuck waiting for the ship to refuel at some backwaters station.

Jinwoo separates them just enough to read his face. He breaks into a smile, relief atop amusement, and says, “Is that it?”

“I know it hurts,” Sanha admits. He’s had more female partners than male, and the majority of his same-sex encounters never hit actual insertion. He sucks on his lip, wondering if the erection throbbing in his pants will carry him through the worst parts.

“No, no,” Jinwoo says, surprising him. “We are _not_ having you bottom if you’re not used to it. It hurts like a bitch, and I want this to be _fun_.” His voice grows more confident, and he ends his statement with a smirk and, “You can just pay me back double next time.”

Sanha manages to smile back, a bit more weakly, just because the promise of payback sparks his nerves. Something molten flows just below his navel. He doesn’t have long to dwell on it, though, since Jinwoo immediately starts taking off his clothes again.

Jinwoo walks him backward to the bed, and Sanha sits down automatically when his knees bump up against the edge. He’s down to just a shirt and his underwear, his erection _very_ obvious beneath the thin fabric. Jinwoo shrugs out of his own shirt, revealing a torso they’ve all envied at one point or another.

Cha Eunwoo is Cha Eunwoo, but you don’t fuck with Jinwoo’s chest.

Sanha isn’t shy about touching, brushing over the defined muscles with reverence. The flesh beneath his fingers quivers, and he looks up to meet Jinwoo’s eyes.

Jinwoo breathes out a laugh and says, “It tickles,” in a voice that suggests it does more than that. When Sanha’s hand slides lower, combing through the fine hairs that trail beneath Jinwoo’s waistband, he’s stopped.

“My turn,” Jinwoo tells him.

“Says who?” Sanha answers, only for all the air to be sucked out of his lungs by Jinwoo’s answering touch.

He places his hand atop Sanha’s underwear and palms his cock through it. “This,” Jinwoo says with a widening smile. Sanha feels his cock twitch in Jinwoo’s hand, the warmth of it noticeable even through the cloth.

Still wearing that teasing grin, Jinwoo raises his hand higher, slipping it underneath Sanha’s shirt and carrying it upward, revealing skin as he goes. Sanha’s paler than Jinwoo, his stomach carved with faint lines of definition that Jinwoo follows up to his sternum. When Jinwoo’s finger flicks over his nipple, Sanha closes his eyes.

He tilts his head back, suddenly breathless.

Jinwoo uses his forefinger and thumb, catching the nub in a gentle pinch before rolling it between his fingers. Then he shifts, placing more of his weight forward, and Sanha _moans_ as Jinwoo’s lips wrap around his nipple. He arches up into the sensation, one hand balling into a fist. He stuffs it into his mouth, bites on the first knuckle, and tries to remember how to breathe.

He can feel Jinwoo carefully rocking against him, but it’s as distant as the stars to his pleasure-numbed mind.

Jinwoo edges him with teeth, using the blunt line of his top two teeth to carefully scrape across the hardened flesh. Then he laps at it with a tongue so hot and wet that the sensation goes straight to Sanha’s dick, and he surprises himself by saying, “Lower, _fuck_.”

He reaches down to touch himself and outright _growls_ when Jinwoo stops him again. The frustration that’s building is mollified when Jinwoo catches him in another kiss.

“You’re so impatient,” Jinwoo says, helping him shrug out of his shirt. A thin sheen of sweat is already gathering on Sanha’s skin, turning Jinwoo’s touch slippery.

“Do you blame me?” he groans back, rutting up with his hips when Jinwoo’s hand settles on his dick again.

“Yes,” Jinwoo whispers into his ear. He catches hold of Sanha’s earlobe and sucks gently on it, hooking his fingers in Sanha’s waistband. His cock is leaking precum, and his underwear slips down his legs sporting a wet spot.

Sanha kicks them away, hears them land somewhere in the room. He’ll find them later, when Jinwoo _isn’t_ stroking his dick, fingers catching the precum and spreading it down his shaft. It barely provides lubrication, but Sanha doesn’t care, pressing open-mouthed kisses into the curve of Jinwoo’s shoulder. Jinwoo’s slow, steady pumping banks the heat that’s been growing unbearable.

He doesn’t complain when Jinwoo takes his hand away, just turns his head and watches as Jinwoo undresses himself. He doesn’t find dicks pretty, but the flushed red head, glistening from a smear of precum, is enough to steal his breath. It bobs, jostled by the hasty way Jinwoo wiggles out of his underwear, rocking with a weight that makes Sanha swallow heavily. He wants to take it in his mouth.

“One second,” Jinwoo says, pressing a quick kiss to Sanha’s lips. “Lube.”

Sanha watches him go, eyes drawn to the way Jinwoo’s body tightens and loosens with every step he takes. They all walk differently, and Jinwoo steps in short, light strides: self-contained, but fluid in a way Sanha can’t replicate.

Jinwoo comes back with a bottle of oil, fetched from the bottom of the nightstand. Sanha doesn’t ask how he knew it was there; the fact that they’re all young men, physically fit and attractive and often on the ship for weeks at a time, is answer enough.

Jinwoo resettles himself on Sanha’s lap, facing him. “I like to ride,” he says with a smile so shyly sweet it makes Sanha feel dirty.

He’s already unscrewed the cap, and Sanha feels something cool and slippery splash across his fingers. He catches hold of Jinwoo’s hip with his other hand, holding him steady.

“You’re not allowed to smile like that,” he answers, a plea pressed into his words.

“What do you mean?” Jinwoo asks with a small laugh. Sanha catches the tail end of it, swallowing up the sound with an open-mouthed kiss. He takes the moan that follows, when he traces his oil-slicked fingers down the indent that starts in the small of Jinwoo’s back. The pad of one finger brushes across the tight pucker of Jinwoo’s asshole, and he shudders against Sanha.

“You’re not allowed to be cute,” Sanha tells him. They separate for breath and for Jinwoo to adjust himself in Sanha’s arms; their cocks brush, causing them to gasp. Sanha’s finger strokes across Jinwoo’s entrance again and again, and he draws his hand away for only a moment to spill more oil across it.

The single finger he pushes inside Jinwoo earns him a slow intake of breath, the fluttering of Jinwoo’s lashes as he breathes around the intrusion. Pressed into each other like this, he feels when Jinwoo’s hand slips between their bodies, the back of his hand brushing against Sanha’s cock as he takes hold of his own.

The minute touches are enough to make Sanha ache, and he has to fight against the urge to skip this preparation. He bites his lip and curves into Jinwoo, slowly pumping his finger in and out. He adds a second one when Jinwoo finally relaxes into him.

“Fuck,” Jinwoo mumbles, head bowed.

Sanha curls his fingers, seeking out the place he knows will make Jinwoo feel good. He isn’t used to this, doesn’t have the best grasp of anatomy (especially when they’re tangled up together and all the blood has rushed out of his brain and into his dick), but he knows when he finds it. His fingers brush across a patch of skin unlike the rest.

Jinwoo groans out his name like it’s a curse and a prayer, the word dug out of his lungs and entirely devoid of air. It’s followed by a smaller, wobbly “Again,” and Sanha obliges. He twists his fingers as he does it, spreading Jinwoo wider. But his cock is hard and aching, and when Jinwoo says at last, “Lie down,” Sanha is more than willing.

He lies back, a pillow propped underneath his head so he can more easily watch Jinwoo above him. Jinwoo settles atop Sanha, his weight a small price to pay for the sight he presents. He’s on his knees, the round of his ass touching Sanha’s dick. One hand he splays on Sanha’s stomach for balance as the other reaches between his thighs, raising himself high enough that he can touch Sanha’s dick.

Sanha breathes out a soft sigh of pleasure as Jinwoo’s oil-slicked fingers stroke his cock. It’s the last thing they need, and Jinwoo only slows his ministrations to ask, “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Sanha answers. He sets one hand on Jinwoo’s waist, gripping him steady. He squeezes the flesh he finds there, feels the hard round of bone beneath feverish skin. He bites his lip when Jinwoo locks eyes with him.

They maintain that eye contact even as Jinwoo lowers onto his dick, the first ring of muscle closing around Sanha’s cock like a vice. He feels his breath throttle, bites hard into his lower lip to retain some semblance of control, and tries to rein in the miniature fluctuations of his hips, a consequence of the brown eyes searing into his soul.

He’s desperately relieved when Jinwoo lolls his head to the side, eyes half-closing as he breathes out a fluttery, “Oh, _God_.”

Each second is an eternity as Jinwoo’s heat slowly envelops him. But soon, he feels himself bottom out inside Jinwoo, the sticky sweat on Jinwoo’s skin transfer onto his own, and Sanha refocuses on Jinwoo’s face, desperate to move but not wanting to hurt his pair-bond.

Jinwoo swallows heavily.

“Are you good?” Sanha asks, grateful when his voice does not crack. He knows it’ll break completely at some point, especially with how much air is wrung from his lungs every time Jinwoo breathes. He’s aware of every single shift of Jinwoo’s body, and each motion lances pleasure through his dick. He’s dying a thousand small deaths, but he’ll accept them all in anticipation of what’s still to come.

“Yeah,” Jinwoo answers. He swallows again, and says, “Yeah, let me just—.”

And then he is moving, rising up off Sanha’s cock only to slowly slide back down it. They both moan at the sensation, Sanha’s body arching up to chase after the heat. Jinwoo takes him slowly like this, his deep breaths punctuated by small, insistent moans when he takes Sanha’s cock down to the base again.

Sanha’s light-headed, completely enraptured in the rhythmic rise and fall of Jinwoo’s hips. He holds his partner steady, slides his hands languidly up Jinwoo’s sides. Jinwoo’s muscles squeeze around him intermittently, and his grip tightens and eases with these shocks of pleasure. 

When Jinwoo leans back, driving Sanha’s length against his prostate, Sanha moves his hands inward on Jinwoo’s torso. He takes them up to Jinwoo’s nipples, pressing his thumbs over each.

“Sanha,” Jinwoo begs, his hips stuttering in their languid pace. 

“Go faster,” Sanha tells him, fingers merciless as he tortures Jinwoo’s nipples.

He pinches one so hard that Jinwoo’s drawn-out moan breaks into a sob at the end, a gasp of mixed pleasure and pain. Jinwoo bows his head, and Sanha slides one hand higher to cup his cheek: a gentle touch that Jinwoo leans into, staring at Sanha with a look so desirous, it stills his remaining hand.

Sanha drops his hands back onto Jinwoo’s hips, holding them firmly. He helps Jinwoo rise and fall atop him, miniscule thrusts of his hips forcing his cock as deep as it can go. Overcome by this faster pace, by the way Sanha’s dick rubs unrepentantly at his prostate, it takes almost no time for Jinwoo to come undone.

It begins in minute trembles, in the way his body contracts around Sanha. It ends in the way he curls forward, his hand a desperate clutch around his cock as he jerks himself to completion. Sanha holds him upright through it, his own orgasm swift to follow: Jinwoo’s body grips him so tightly and so deeply that he can do nothing but shove up into the sensation, feet planted firm on the bed for leverage. His hips thrust him deeper into that ruinous feeling, egged on by Jinwoo’s broken begging, an unending stream of, “Sanha, fuck, fuck—don’t—don’t stop, oh _fuck_ ,” until he finds his own end, holding Jinwoo’s hips down against his own.

When his hands finally, shakily, pull away, he sees he has left fingerprint-sized bruises upon Jinwoo’s hips. He slowly sinks back down into the bed, his muscles veritable liquid beneath his skin.

“Fuck,” Jinwoo repeats for good measure. His spent semen covers the hand he used to jerk himself off. He caught most of it, but a few droplets landed upon Sanha, small spots of warmth to contrast the slow-cooling of his flushed skin.

“Come here,” Sanha says. He wants to hold Jinwoo.

“Clean up first,” Jinwoo answers, voice gently scolding. He points toward the tissues box that rest on the nightstand, and Sanha grabs as many as he can. It’s a struggle to move too much when he feels so boneless, but he also knows Jinwoo will feel gross if they don’t clean up a bit.

Jinwoo wipes off his hand first, then slowly eases off Sanha. He winces as he does it, which prompts a sound of concern from Sanha.

“I’m fine,” Jinwoo answers. He settles onto the bed beside Sanha, easing down onto his stomach. “Been a while since I did that, is all. Got a little carried away.”

“Here,” Sanha says. He pats at the space beside him. Even if they’re both covered in sweat and smell like sex, he still wants to bundle Jinwoo against him.

Jinwoo scoffs in his direction, then breathes out a relenting sigh when Sanha pats the bed again. He crawls closer, only stopping when he fits into the curve of Sanha’s side, his chin settling atop Sanha’s out-flung arm.

“We can shower when we get to Staton,” he says.

Sanha hums back an affirmation, eyes already closing. He’s exhausted in a good way.

He listens to Jinwoo’s breathing even out. He slits one eye open briefly, just to confirm his pair-bond is asleep. Then he closes it again and finally lets sleep claim him as well.

Sanha is woken about two hours later by the insistent ramming of something hard and metallic against the foot he dangles off the bed. He half-raises himself up, just enough to spot the sensor light of the artificial intelligence’s mobile form and flops back down with a heavy sigh.

It beeps an angry-sounding affirmation of his wakefulness and motors around the bed to rest by the nightstand. “Yoon Sanha, confirmation of consciousness?”

“Yes,” Sanha tells the bot. “Go _away_ , Plexi.”

“No,” it answers, sounding more like its typical bratty self. “Ship has commenced docking in Staton M-5. You have approximately twelve minutes to make yourself and Composer Park Jinwoo presentable.” Almost as an afterthought, it adds, “Park Jinwoo’s presence will be required as resident medic. You can stay here.” 

“I’m going, thank you,” he answers. He sighs and slowly extracts his arm from underneath Jinwoo. Jinwoo slits one eye open at him but only responds by turning over, facing away from him and probably going back to sleep.

Sanha sits up, passing one hand over his face before he reaches up to ruffle his hair. Based on the shape of it, he thinks it might look similar to the style he wore during his earliest academy days, when everyone called him “mushroom head”. He tousles it, working out the clumps.

“Run the shower, Plexi,” he tells the bot, when he realizes it still hasn’t moved. “I’ll get Jinwoo up.”

“Affirmative,” it answers with a beep. It rumbles away, and Sanha hears the sudden burst of waterspray from the bathroom that connects to his bedroom.

He turns to the task of waking Jinwoo, only to find his pair-bond already awake, watching him with slitted, sleepy eyes.

“Your fingers are so weird,” he says, before Sanha can greet him.

He takes hold of Sanha’s hand, pulling it down from where it continues to idly stroke through his bangs, and lines up their fingers. Jinwoo’s fingers stretch longer than Sanha’s, each one perfectly straight; in comparison, Sanha’s are shorter, knuckles knotty in a way that makes his hands seem smaller than they are.

“You’re being mean,” he tells Jinwoo with a small smile. He thinks Jinwoo is cute like this, fuzzy-headed and slow-moving. 

He tries to pull his hand away, but Jinwoo hooks his fingers through Sanha’s, tilting his head.

“Am I?”

“Yeeeees,” Sanha says, dragging the word out into an affectionate whine. “We need to shower. Be mean to my hands later.”

“Yeeeees?” Jinwoo softly mimics the sound, mouth curved into a smile of his own. “You’re so cute.”

Sanha turns his head away, not wanting to stare Jinwoo in the eyes. He’s heard the same words a thousand times before, played out over a lifetime. But like this, in the aftermath of sex with his pair-bond—it gets to him, makes him blush like he’s kissing his crush for the first time, giddy with love.

Turned away as he is, he only feels Jinwoo push up from the bed. He sees, in the corner of his eye, Jinwoo lean into him, and then there is the steady pressure of Jinwoo’s head against his, the soft touch of Jinwoo’s forehead to his temple.

“You’re not fair,” he murmurs and turns to kiss Jinwoo. It’s a short, chaste kiss; he smiles wide when they part, just enough that he can see Jinwoo wears a matching expression.

“I could say the same to you,” Jinwoo answers. “Look at what you did to me.”

“I can do more,” Sanha says softly.

An unwelcome, robotic voice breaks through their moment: “Docking complete in estimated five minutes, _Yoon Sanha._ ”

Sanha fights down the urge to roll his eyes. He does not quite conquer the desire to snatch up his pillow and throw it at the offending robot. The artificial intelligence dodges easily; it’s had too much practice doing the same thing with Bin. 

“We know, Plexi,” Jinwoo says, still smiling. “Thank you.”

Jinwoo places one hand on the knob of Sanha’s knee, rubs calming circles across his skin. “We should shower,” he says. “ _Just_ shower,” he adds meaningfully, and Sanha pushes out his lips in a pout.

“I know,” he says. “But, after—?”

“You’re insatiable,” Jinwoo retorts. He squeezes Sanha’s knee before saying, “We’ll see how everything goes in Staton.”

Sanha knows when to push his luck and when to pull back. Even if he wants more, their crew comes first and foremost. He relents with a sigh and places his hand atop Jinwoo’s, giving it a small squeeze. “Okay.”

He can wait, now that it’s finally happened. He has a pair-bond. They have time.

Later, when they’ve all been checked clear and healthy and received updated vaccinations and boosters, he’s stopped by Bin in the hall of their ship. Sanha expects some gentle ribbing, an arm thrown around his neck and a forceful congratulations on his successful pair-bonding.

Instead, he gets a motion to stay quiet and is led further down the corridor. They come to a turn, and Bin gestures for him to slowly peek around it. He spies something that momentarily drops his stomach: Jinwoo and Myungjun. There is also a coil of jealousy, and he almost steps out into the hallway to make his presence known.

But Bin catches him in a grip of iron, his hand like a manacle around Sanha’s bicep. “Just listen,” he hisses.

Jinwoo and Myungjun are winding down a conversation. Jinwoo wears an alert expression, but Sanha has never seen Myungjun so intent as he is now. He forgets, sometimes, just how mature Myungjun truly is.

Jinwoo looks down, one hand rubbing nervous circles into the other. “I want us to be friends,” he says. “Proper friends. I know I haven’t been fair to you—”

But that’s as far as he gets, because Myungjun suddenly and violently slams his head forward. His forehead connects with Jinwoo’s, a hard _thud_ resounding in the enclosed space, and Bin says, “Idiot” with all the alarm of a man who watches greater trainwrecks every day.

Jinwoo staggers backward from the blow. Myungjun wobbles on the spot, voice high with pain as he squeals out, “Why is your head so hard!?”

“Who said you could headbutt me?” Jinwoo retorts. He’s blinking rapidly, dumbfounded.

“Who said you could be so stupid?” Myungjun is quick to counter. “We’ve always been friends, you stupid—stupid! Just because you had a stick up your ass Sanha had to remove doesn’t mean I stopped being your friend.” Looking both proud and somewhat faint, he finishes, “I just knocked some sense into you.”

“I think you gave me a concussion.”

“It’ll make you smarter,” Myungjun says.

“That’s the exact opposite of what a concussion does, you idiot.” Jinwoo drops into a crouch, sucks in a breath through his teeth. He feels at the skin where their heads connected. “This is going to turn into a goose egg.”

“Probably,” Myungjun agrees. “We good now? You done trying to turn this into some sappy, heartfelt thing?”

“Ugh,” Jinwoo answers. “I was _trying_ to be sincere.”

“Yeah, and I don’t like having an audience, so get your boyfriend to cart you to the medbay if you really think I ruined your good looks.”

“What.” Jinwoo turns to look down the corridor.

Bin says, “Good luck,” in Sanha’s ear and shoves him hard out into the open. He stands there for a moment, unsure of what to do. Jinwoo pins him down with eyes that threaten a thousand punishments doled out over an unending lifetime.

Sanha only moves after Myungjun strolls past him, unfazed by how his steps wobble. Sanha goes to Jinwoo, voice meek as he says, “Hi.”

“That idiot gave me a concussion,” Jinwoo tells him.

Sanha answers honestly, “I saw.”

He isn’t surprised when Jinwoo cracks a smile. He just settles down beside his pair-bond on the floor, happy to share in his company.

“Oh,” Jinwoo breathes out. “Honestly.” He leans back against the wall.

“Are things settled now?”

“Not completely,” Jinwoo says. “But it’s a start. That was all I wanted.”

Sanha dips his head in assent. He reaches out and takes hold of one of Jinwoo’s hands, once more lining their fingers up.

“Still can’t believe how small your hands are,” Jinwoo comments. “Feet, too.”

“I’m big in the ways that matter,” Sanha answers, unable to keep a grin from spreading across his face.

“Oh my god,” Jinwoo says. He laughs, tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling, and asks it, “What cardinal sin did I commit in a past life to be punished like this?”

“I’m a reward,” Sanha says. He gives Jinwoo’s hand a gentle squeeze and maneuvers his body until he can rest his chin on the flat line of Jinwoo’s shoulder. He makes a happy sound when Jinwoo rests his head against Sanha’s.

“You are.”

Sanha is happier than he’s been in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> hello welcome to this universe i invented specifically to write porn :^) everyone is a bit older just so i have wiggle room to dip back into academy days and not worry about anyone being underage lmao
> 
> yeah don't ask me where this sudden ship came from, i've got a weakness for height difference pairings. the blue flame promos really just ruined me LMAO
> 
> the other pairings were so that i can eventually write you-know-who chaky smut (ilu), and b/c i haven't written myungbin before and wow that's a couple with some chaotic energy. chaky was meant to appear more here but myungbin were really just nonstop :^)


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